Worth Reading: 01/25/13

I didn’t plan for back-to-back features on zombies, that’s the way it worked out. I also don’t usually publish an article separate from Worth Reading on a Friday in an effort to cleanly spread that material out. Thankfully, my ability to outsource a rough draft of my interview transcripts (I always double check ‘em) means I’m able to turn around features much faster than ever before, and this reflects that. I’ve already got a few that should be out the door next week.

“Eight Women, Eight Responses, and One Dead Island Riptide Statue” generated quite the firestorm, which anyone could have predicted that a mile away. When a story generates a forum thread before it’s even gone live, it’s going to provoke a reaction. Hopefully, my commitment to spend 30 minutes responding in the comments was worthwhile, as I’d like to do that more often, even for features that aren’t going to explode. With my ZombiU feature, for example, there was plenty of material that didn’t make it into the piece, and that's a place where I reveal more than what was published.

Many of you suggested some feature ideas last week, too, and I’ve taken notes. Someone proposed a look into the speedrun community. It reminded me how I went down really deep down that rabbit hole an afternoon at the office, and never followed up. There's something really compelling about watching people straight up break games.

All that said, let’s turn down the heat a bit and enjoy the weekend. See you guys next week!

Hey, You Should Play This

The first time someone told me “hey, pay attention to the games Adult Swim is producing on its website,” it was hard to take them seriously. Then, you start running down the seriously bizarre, interesting, and seriously fun list of games (full list here) they’ve commissioned, and it’s a different story. It's...crazy. Westerado is one of the more ambitious games I’ve seen Adult Swim commission, an overhead, relatively open world 2D western action game. Our expectations for what is possible with web games grows every single day, and Westerado is a game I’ll be returning to over the weekend. Great visuals, fun soundtrack, weird story, and a lovable ability to pull a gun on anyone.

And You Should Read This, Too

It’s over for THQ as a publisher, and it’s hard to imagine how much of that is Jason Rubin’s fault. It was just too late. The now former THQ president has only given a single interview about his tenure at THQ since the asset sale took place this week, and while the interview is hardly exhaustive, you get the sense Rubin truly does regret what happened with Vigil Games. Darksiders II was not the hit THQ needed to financially stand on its own, and Vigil Games was years away from releasing a new game. The other studios and franchises picked up in the sale had games ready to roll, while purchasing Vigil would be purchasing potential. Here’s hoping folks land on their feet.

The best example of this is Vigil’s title, codenamed Crawler. When the teams got together recently to show each other their titles, Crawler dropped the most jaws. It is a fantastic idea, and truly unique. The fact that nobody bid for the team and title is a travesty. It makes no sense to me. If I weren’t barred from bidding as an insider, I would have been there with my checkbook. I’m sure that’s little consolation to the team, but that’s a fact.

The media is, too often, laser focused on what’s ahead. There are plenty of reasons for that. One, the audience is also excited about what’s ahead. Two, the relationship between game publishers and media is one that necessitates talking about what’s ahead. Three, there’s more potential in generating traffic for what people are interested in right now. But there’s so much for us to learn about what’s already happened, and I’m really curious to see how Jeremy Parish’s “Anatomy of a Game” project pans out, in which he’s dissecting tons of old games stage-by-stage.

The seventh block along Castlevania III‘s alternate path brings us to the end of Sypha’s route, and the game marks your arrival at Castlevania proper by swapping out the standard regional map for a castle floor plan patterned after the first game’s stage map. In case you had forgotten about the way the journey diverged several levels back, the new map shows hints, partially obscured, of a route down beneath the castle. “You’ve missed something,” it declares. Another neat detail to nudge the player to explore the game in greater depth.

I didn’t plan for back-to-back features on zombies, that’s the way it worked out. I also don’t usually publish an article separate from Worth Reading on a Friday in an effort to cleanly spread that material out. Thankfully, my ability to outsource a rough draft of my interview transcripts (I always double check ‘em) means I’m able to turn around features much faster than ever before, and this reflects that. I’ve already got a few that should be out the door next week.

“Eight Women, Eight Responses, and One Dead Island Riptide Statue” generated quite the firestorm, which anyone could have predicted that a mile away. When a story generates a forum thread before it’s even gone live, it’s going to provoke a reaction. Hopefully, my commitment to spend 30 minutes responding in the comments was worthwhile, as I’d like to do that more often, even for features that aren’t going to explode. With my ZombiU feature, for example, there was plenty of material that didn’t make it into the piece, and that's a place where I reveal more than what was published.

Many of you suggested some feature ideas last week, too, and I’ve taken notes. Someone proposed a look into the speedrun community. It reminded me how I went down really deep down that rabbit hole an afternoon at the office, and never followed up. There's something really compelling about watching people straight up break games.

All that said, let’s turn down the heat a bit and enjoy the weekend. See you guys next week!

Hey, You Should Play This

The first time someone told me “hey, pay attention to the games Adult Swim is producing on its website,” it was hard to take them seriously. Then, you start running down the seriously bizarre, interesting, and seriously fun list of games (full list here) they’ve commissioned, and it’s a different story. It's...crazy. Westerado is one of the more ambitious games I’ve seen Adult Swim commission, an overhead, relatively open world 2D western action game. Our expectations for what is possible with web games grows every single day, and Westerado is a game I’ll be returning to over the weekend. Great visuals, fun soundtrack, weird story, and a lovable ability to pull a gun on anyone.

And You Should Read This, Too

It’s over for THQ as a publisher, and it’s hard to imagine how much of that is Jason Rubin’s fault. It was just too late. The now former THQ president has only given a single interview about his tenure at THQ since the asset sale took place this week, and while the interview is hardly exhaustive, you get the sense Rubin truly does regret what happened with Vigil Games. Darksiders II was not the hit THQ needed to financially stand on its own, and Vigil Games was years away from releasing a new game. The other studios and franchises picked up in the sale had games ready to roll, while purchasing Vigil would be purchasing potential. Here’s hoping folks land on their feet.

The best example of this is Vigil’s title, codenamed Crawler. When the teams got together recently to show each other their titles, Crawler dropped the most jaws. It is a fantastic idea, and truly unique. The fact that nobody bid for the team and title is a travesty. It makes no sense to me. If I weren’t barred from bidding as an insider, I would have been there with my checkbook. I’m sure that’s little consolation to the team, but that’s a fact.

The media is, too often, laser focused on what’s ahead. There are plenty of reasons for that. One, the audience is also excited about what’s ahead. Two, the relationship between game publishers and media is one that necessitates talking about what’s ahead. Three, there’s more potential in generating traffic for what people are interested in right now. But there’s so much for us to learn about what’s already happened, and I’m really curious to see how Jeremy Parish’s “Anatomy of a Game” project pans out, in which he’s dissecting tons of old games stage-by-stage.

The seventh block along Castlevania III‘s alternate path brings us to the end of Sypha’s route, and the game marks your arrival at Castlevania proper by swapping out the standard regional map for a castle floor plan patterned after the first game’s stage map. In case you had forgotten about the way the journey diverged several levels back, the new map shows hints, partially obscured, of a route down beneath the castle. “You’ve missed something,” it declares. Another neat detail to nudge the player to explore the game in greater depth.

I liked the point about how mental illness shouldn't be so heavily a threat with gun control. Most gun violence isn't caused by the mentally ill in America, even if some of the more high profile tragedies are.

I really like these articles alot! , in my opinion the artcles such as 1reasonwhy and the dead island statue dont really fit with the core giantbomb audience , i know you feel strongly about these things patrick but in my opinion it just doesnt fit

That pixel looks kind of like a toy i had as a kid, i think it was called lite brite or something like that, you put pegs in holes and it lights up to display the picture but of course this is way more complex and would lvoe to get one in a 16:9 screen format.

I really like these articles alot! , in my opinion the artcles such as 1reasonwhy and the dead island statue dont really fit with the core giantbomb audience , i know you feel strongly about these things patrick but in my opinion it just doesnt fit

There's a difference between not fitting with you and not fitting with this "core audience" that you invented.

I really like these articles alot! , in my opinion the artcles such as 1reasonwhy and the dead island statue dont really fit with the core giantbomb audience , i know you feel strongly about these things patrick but in my opinion it just doesnt fit

Agreed. I visit GiantBomb for fun videos and Quick Looks of upcoming games. These serious gender and marketing issues would fit better on a personal blog rather than the site itself. Maybe I'm being ignorant, but I like visiting this site for entertaining games content and articles like the Eight Responses thing only serve to create controversy and division within the community. Lets keep it fun, lets keep it videogames, huh?

I believe BoneTown has been around for a long time. I'm pretty sure I remember there being discussions about it back in the old GFW podcast. Interesting to see it pop up on Steam Greenlight all of a sudden.

Yeah and the more i think about it the more i hate it. If it's on purpose that's just gross. If it's not that just show how much of an hypocrite about this stuff he is.

I'm gonna be called a hater i guess but oh well.

C'mon. There's a big difference here. Rocketgirl is just straight ridiculous and stupid.

This is why, as glad as I am that you're at least attempting to highlight issues in the games industry, ultimately you fall flat. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you should not be acting as gatekeeper over what is and isn't sexist - that is for women to decide.

As someone who thinks the actual design of games and their conveyances of gameplay; stages, levels, maps, whatever... as someone who is extremely interested in that, Parish's article is very interesting.

However, it is maybe the worst formatted piece of games writing I have ever seen in my life. Who could read that? A crazy person? A crazy person's personal reader?

Yeah and the more i think about it the more i hate it. If it's on purpose that's just gross. If it's not that just show how much of an hypocrite about this stuff he is.

I'm gonna be called a hater i guess but oh well.

C'mon. There's a big difference here. Rocketgirl is just straight ridiculous and stupid.

This is why, as glad as I am that you're at least attempting to highlight issues in the games industry, ultimately you fall flat. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you should not be acting as gatekeeper over what is and isn't sexist - that is for women to decide.

...?

No, that is for anyone who understands the definition of sexism and can rub two thoughts together to decide. Women don't get to decide what is sexism by fiat, we have a definition for what sexism is, and anyone with a shred of logic can use evidence and reason to figure out if something fits.

The idea that women are capable of knowing purely on account of being women is in itself sexism, regardless of how 'benevolent' it may be.

@Milkman: Nah don't try to paint this guy as an asshole. He just means to say Giant Bomb needs less SRS BUSINESS. Stop being defensive.

It doesn't need less "srs business." There was one "serious" article this week. That's it. You can do both. You can talk about sexism and you can play Beverly Hills Cop. If you don't want the serious content, then don't click it. The stupid stuff (which I also love) will always be there too.

This is why, as glad as I am that you're at least attempting to highlight issues in the games industry, ultimately you fall flat. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you should not be acting as gatekeeper over what is and isn't sexist - that is for women to decide.

...What?

Sexism goes both ways. You only want all the women in the world to decide what's sexist and what isn't for men too? That's just bad news man. Now, abortion: that's something for women to decide. Sexism as a whole? No.

I spoke to my Beyonce about the Dead Island thing and she thought it was disgusting and degrading. I showed her the YouTube video of Rocketgirl and while she completely understood the obviously absurd nature of the product, she said the same thing. At the end of the day they're both using a pair of tits to sell trash.

But it's totally OK to laugh about one of those, because it's not being serious, right?

Thanks for the weekly list of goodies. All I have to say is that Pixels are SQUARE! I feel like the round, light brite look plus the relatively large black space between pixels sort of takes away from the pixelart look. I think what'd be cooler is if they managed to make the same thing but with a CRT look. I remember back in the day, getting up real close to the TV and seeing the individual red, green and blue lines that made up one "pixel" of them old tvs. That'd be hot =)

I like your idea of spending 30 minutes in the comments section. However, it would be nice if there was an easier way to find your comments in there than scrolling through the hordes of other comments. Your profile page gives a little snippet of each, but I don't see a way to see the entirety of your comments. It would be interesting to see your responses to commenters.

Wow, really surprised after the shitstorm with Dead Island the last thing I would have expected was Pat thinking a game like Rocket Girl to be ok. Guess it's fine as long as he finds it funny, but a moral outrage and a plight that needs to be stopped if he doesn't. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Or in this case I guess he does.

Really? Rocketgirl? The only thing that game has going for it is "HOT CHICKS IN BIKINIS YEAH!!" If they really "knew what's in my head," they wouldn't have put that garbage up on Greenlight. And in light of the stories about the Dead Island fiasco et al, it seems especially hypocritical.

I like your idea of spending 30 minutes in the comments section. However, it would be nice if there was an easier way to find your comments in there than scrolling through the hordes of other comments. Your profile page gives a little snippet of each, but I don't see a way to see the entirety of your comments. It would be interesting to see your responses to commenters.

I second this. A jump-to option would be nice to have. And please don't let the haters get to you Patrick.